Teenager evicted for all-night vuvuzela parties

A teenager, Toni Nicholson, has been evicted from her flat after holding all
night vuvuzela parties.

Toni Nicholson advertised parties at her two-bed flat on Facebook, encouraging people to bring along the super loud instruments, which hit the headlines during the World Cup in South Africa in 2010Photo: AFP

10:20AM BST 24 Oct 2011

Nicholson was finally kicked out of her flat in Ramsgate, Kent, last week after a string of complaints about drunken house parties over the past year.

The 19-year-old advertised parties at her two-bed flat on Facebook, encouraging people to bring along the super loud instruments, which hit the headlines during the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

The instruments can reach 131 decibels - the equivalent of a jet plane passing over your head at just 100ft.

During the World Cup a string of players, including former Manchester United ace Cristiano Ronaldo said the noise affected his concentration on the pitch and the noise had been compared to the sound of a thousand bees or a herd of stampeding elephants.

Canterbury County Court heard last week how Nicholson regularly held parties at her flat and that more than 40 people usually attended the bashes.

After a string of complaints from neighbours, her landlords Town and County Housing decided to take legal action to force the mum-of-one out after she repeatedly ignored requests to stop the wild parties.

Among the complaints from neighbours included party guests blowing vuvuzelas 'en masse', fighting in the stairwell, damaging property and throwing things of the first-floor balcony.

Errol Harris, a boss at Town and Country Housing, said his team had tried to persuade Miss Nicholson to stop her parties and be a 'good neighbour', but that the problems lasted more than one year.

He confirmed that a number of complaints had mentioned 'ear-splitting noise' from vuvuzelas and that the repossession of the flat was the 'only option' left after Miss Nicholson continually breached an injunction to stop the parties.

Mr Harris said: "We received numerous complaints about the behaviour of this young woman and the people who attended her parties.

"Screaming, shouting, loud music, drunkenness, drugs and foul language were all common features.

"The neighbours were terrified. Some took sleeping pills or arranged to sleep elsewhere at weekends to avoid the disturbances.

"A number of people even moved out because of this antisocial behaviour."

He added: "Children were afraid to play outside because of the people who attended the parties and the broken glass and debris strewn in the square outside the flats.

"Evicting people is always our last resort, but for the sake of the neighbours we had no choice.

"We tried exceptionally hard to change her ways and behave reasonably, including asking her to agree to an acceptable behaviour agreement, but she refused to do this.

"The other residents had to put up with hell and as a responsible landlord we were not prepared to see this go on."

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: "The noise was deafening some nights.

"There was a constant stream of people coming and going all night and the morning the whole block of flats looked like a bomb had hit it - there was glass and cans and bottles everywhere.

"Some guests were still there in the morning lying unconscious in the corridors."

She added: "The constant noise was like something I have never heard and on several nights all of them had vuvuzelas and were blowing them all night.

"They must have thought it was funny, but it was a real year of hell living with that girl in the block."

Nicholson refused to comment about her eviction, but on her Facebook page she states: "I don't care if it's 4am - I don't consider it tomorrow until I wake up."